Surveys conducted by Gallup and University of Chicago have not shown such drops in job satisfaction. Still, the Conference Board findings can serve as a warning to retailers. Here’s why you might care:
- Researchers and business consultants have given evidence that higher employee satisfaction produces higher customer satisfaction and higher customer satisfaction produces higher retailer profitability. If dissatisfaction is brewing among your staff, that could end up damaging your bottom line.
- The Conference Board says that the highest levels of dissatisfaction are among younger employees. Compared to other sectors, retailing has more younger employees. Not surprisingly, then, job dissatisfaction rates have been higher among retail employees than among employees in general.
- With the job market being so tight, people were grateful for having work, even if the workload increased and job benefits decreased. As time has passed, however, and early signs of economic improvement appear, it could be that the gratitude is turning to impressions of servitude, with retail employees feeling trapped in their jobs. Some employee turnover is always good for a retailing business, but excessive turnover could create problems for you.
But decades of research on job satisfaction also suggests what measures you can take to build and maintain high satisfaction in the type of employees you’d like to keep. Among the top techniques is to train and coach your people to be of service to others. The Conference Board is only one of many organizations reporting that the employees who are most satisfied are those who view themselves as experts and have ample opportunities to be of service to customers.
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